This post is for those with a stressful job. It’s likely that your place of work has a culture of busy-ness. By this, I mean that your office is hectic, everyone has massive to-do lists, and people are extremely busy— your boss may even be too busy to give you feedback. More and more recently, the American workplace culture has been defined by an incessant call for productivity. The attitude is that if you’re busy, you’re important. You’re needed. A never-ending to-do list, working lunches, and email answering from your cell phone at midnight are characteristic traits. Everyone wants to feel valued and respected in their professions, but constantly allowing yourself to be swamped can get unhealthy very quickly. Brené Brown, an esteemed professor at the University of Houston, calls this culture “exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self-worth.”
People who consider themselves workaholics might recognize that their work-life balance is disproportionate, but come up short with solutions. Often, those people feel too stressed to adequately enjoy quality time with their friends or families. They may even feel guilty when they do non-work-related activities, feeling preoccupied with emails that are piling up or a project with an approaching due date that needs their attention.

Brené Brown was interviewed in this Washington Post article, and she explained this concept further: 
“One of the things that I found [in her research] was the importance of rest and play, and the willingness to let go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self-worth. A lot of people told me that when they put their work away and when they try to be still and be with family, sometimes they feel like they’re coming out of their skins. They’re thinking of everything they’re not doing, and they’re not used to that pace. So when we make the transition from crazy-busy to rest, we have to find out what comforts us, what really refuels us, and do that. We deserve to not just put work away and be in service of someone else. What’s really meaningful for us? What do we want to be doing? That happens not just in work culture, I see it even with teenagers who now have four and five hours of homework and go to bed at one in the morning. We don’t know who we are without productivity as a metric of our worth. We don’t know what we enjoy, and we lose track of how tired we are.”

To practice self-care and establish an appropriate work-life balance, setting boundaries might be necessary. Brené Brown said:
“We have to encourage people to set boundaries around their work and respect them when they hold them. And I think as leaders we have to model that. One thing that I tell people all the time is, I’m not going to answer a call from you after nine o’clock at night or before nine o’clock in the morning unless it’s an emergency. To me, a leader is someone who holds her- or himself accountable for finding potential in people and processes. And so what I think is really important is sustainability. If it’s crunch time and from Tuesday morning through Wednesday night all bets are off, then there should be some real boundary holding Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. When people just don’t make themselves available, I think it’s healthy, and I think it’s smart.”

It’s great to be devoted to your job (or, if you're a student, to school), and it’s even better to consistently make efforts to do your best. We all need our jobs: we have bills to pay and mouths to feed! But if you’ve been feeling like your job has infected the rest of your life, do yourself (and your loved ones) a favor by taking a step back and setting some healthy boundaries.

Since setting boundaries is much easier said than done, here are some good reads with solid tips on how to do this:

• Setting Boundaries at Work
• 7 Ways to Advocate for Yourself at Work
• How to Advocate for Yourself in High School
• 10 Steps to Being an Effective Self Advocate

Stay healthy, Chaps!
--Kirsten Dalquist, MSSW Intern
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Confidence is coveted but sometimes hard to achieve. Social media has made it very easy for us to compare ourselves to others, which is a surefire way to lose confidence in ourselves. We might see a picture of someone who we perceive to be more attractive than us. Or we might see someone posting about positive feedback that they received at work, which might make us doubt our own abilities if we are less prone to receiving positive feedback. Such comparison facilitates a lack of confidence in ourselves and our abilities. 

Confidence makes us happier, feel more positive, and attracts other people to us. I believe that, for the most part, we all want to be confident. But the truth is that a great number of us are self-critical and have low self-esteem. Some people may think it would be impossible to ever be confident in themselves. Maybe an all-encompassing, permanent confidence in every aspect of yourself is impossible-- we all need to critically appraise ourselves every once in a while-- but raising your confidence levels is both possible and within your control. If you want to be a more confident, self-assured person, here are some tips that may help you reach your goal. 

Tips for increasing confidence: 

• Eliminate negative thoughts. Although it takes some practice, eventually you can learn how to identify and throw away your automatic negative thoughts. Read our blog post here about how thoughts are just thoughts-- involuntary events that do not reflect the “truth” or reality. With practice, you can train your mind to avoid subjects you don’t want to spend time thinking about. For example, if you tend to be self-critical of yourself throughout the day, you can learn to recognize when you're about to go down that negative path in your mind, intercept the thought, and move to a more positive thought.
• Clean your body. This may seem like a strange addition to this list, but the truth is that most of us feel our best when we are looking and smelling our best. Give yourself adequate time to get ready in the mornings, and make sure you are practicing good hygiene skills.
• Exercise. Moving our bodies increases the release of chemicals called endorphins, which trigger positive feelings in our bodies and minds. Exercising frequently makes us feel productive, more energetic, and happier.
• Push yourself to get out of your comfort zone. Often, when faced with a task we haven’t tried before, we are not confident in our abilities. A little practice is all we need to become more familiar with the task and start taking steps toward confidence! 
• Give yourself time to prepare. It’s hard to be confident if you feel unprepared to do something. You might doubt that you will do well if you are unprepared. Think of giving a presentation: if you haven’t prepared what you’re going to say, you might flounder in front of your audience. To avoid this, practice! Give yourself plenty of time to prepare and practice. You will thank yourself.
• Stand tall. Amy Cuddy’s research (watch this fascinating Ted Talk!) suggests that our bodies can convince our minds to be more confident. For example, standing straight is a much more empowering stance than hunching over with our arms crossed. The latter conveys discomfort to other people and to ourselves; the former conveys confidence.
• Set small goals and achieve them. This is a surefire way for gaining trust in your abilities. We often set large, lofty goals for ourselves and get discouraged when we fail to meet them. Yet, are we being realistic with ourselves? If we have never run before but want to start, setting a goal of jogging for three minutes every day is much more realistic than immeditaly being able to run three miles. Achieving a small goal is a stepping stone to bigger goals, and it makes us feel good about ourselves along the way. 

These are just a few ideas of how to achieve the confidence that you deserve! If you want to read more ideas, check out this article. 

Because confidence is sometimes misconstrued as arrogance, I just want to point out that it is possible to be confident:

• Without being arrogant or narcissistic
• While acknowledging that other people also have things to be confident about. Just because someone else is beautiful does not mean you are not! 
• While accepting the fact that, as human beings, we all have imperfections. That  doesn't mean we aren't still awesome! 

Stay happy and healthy, Chaps!
--Kirsten Dalquist, MSSW Intern